


Dear Francis

by IvyS



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Actually don't read this if you're triggered by mentions of wartime and violence, Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, World War II, but this fic doesn't actually contain french because i can't speak french, francis is a little shit who won't stop writing in french, so it's all from Alice's point of view
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 03:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5317961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IvyS/pseuds/IvyS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alice Kirkland has to write letters to a boy in France as a school assignment, and it would be so much easier if he’d stop replying in French.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Francis

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the FrUK Loving You Through Time event hosted on tumblr, by FrUK Heaven. I just decided to move it over to my AO3 for some reason.

_The year is 1930. A young girl, 12 years old, excitedly walks down the streets of London with her governess. Her name is Alice Kirkland, and she can’t stop talking about the nurses that went to her school to give a talk that day. She wants to say more too, about the new penpal programme that they are having this semester, but the governess only shushes her and tells her that it’s not ladylike to talk so much. Alice is disappointed, but the letter that’s been crammed into her schoolbag helps to bolster her spirits, and in a few minutes she’s smiling again._

***

_The first letter is written in French, and whilst Alice is fairly proficient in the language, translation is a pain so she pens her reply in English out of childish spite._

“15th September 1930

Dear Francis,

How are you? It’s great to have a pen pal, even though you’re a boy. Unfortunately there were too little boys in my class so I guess that it can’t be helped.

My name is Alice, as you probably already know, and I’m 13 this year. I like painting and embroidery, the usual stuff, and I like reading too. What about you? What are your hobbies?

Sincerely,

Alice Kirkland

PS: Next time could you write in English? ”

_It’s short but written in her neatest handwriting, and Alice is prouder of it than she’d care to admit to anyone._

_***_

_1931\. There are whispers of another war in the East, but they are soft and unnoticeable to the little girl with a letter in her hand. The programme ended last month, and she wrote her farewells, but yesterday morning another arrived in the mail with her name on it. “How troublesome,” Alice had told her mother, but it is with a smile that she pushes the white envelope into the bright red post-box._

“1st October 1931

Francis,

I can’t believe you wrote again! You’re unbelievable, did you know that? Anyway, how are you? You mentioned something about a cold in your last letter. Serves you right for sneaking out of your house in the middle of the night! It’d just be your luck that it’d rain on the way back. I know your old friend was visiting from Spain, but couldn’t you have met the day after?

If you ask me, it sounds a tad bit too suspicious. Two boys running around who knows where at 1am can’t be good at all. If I did that Alan, my eldest brother- he’s back from Scotland for a bit, would have my hide. My family isn’t the best behaved sometimes, but they wouldn’t let their children go as and when they please. I can already imagine what kind of retort you’re going to make, but don’t bother. We all know that you’re just jealous of my family.

Back to the topic of you being ill, the best remedy is lots of bed rest as well as water. Meaning that you can’t go gallivanting about with Antonio all day. Maybe you can use this chance to actually study and pull up your marks in History.

Sincerely,

Alice

PS: Your letters are still in bloody French, you annoying clod.”

***

_Alice is 18 now, and she cares more about things than her father thinks she should. 1936 is almost over, and it has not been a very light-hearted year. War has broken out in Spain, and a worrying alliance has been signed amongst some other countries. She’s been told by a man at work that ‘fretting her pretty head’ about it wouldn’t do any good, so she should focus more on the people around her. Alice is disgusted, but she can’t tell her boss because she’ll be fired for causing trouble._

“1st November 1936

Dear Francis,

Are you still worrying about Antonio? I can imagine why, the reports in the papers don’t look all that great. If it’s worth anything, from what you’ve told me, I think he’s tenacious enough to make it through. Maybe you can try calling his number again (no, for the seventh time I’m not going to give you my number, because we’re penpals and calling is cheating.) and see if anyone picks up. But if he’s smart he wouldn’t be staying in his registered house anymore. I recently moved out to a women’s boarding house, and I suspect that the woman next door is hiding a Spaniard. The walls are pretty thin, and the nights are quiet so I can hear them talking if I listen hard enough. I won’t tell anyone though- it’s not really my business.

Ever since I last wrote, I’ve gotten a new job. The last one just wasn’t working out for me, what with the desperate guys that you find in a diner. This one is slightly better, I’m a clerk at a telephone company and all I do is answer calls all day. It’s kind of frustrating, since I wasn’t able to obtain a place at a university. It might have been easier if my parents were well off, but we’re not so there’s that. Maybe if I save up enough for a job I can pay the tuition fees, and I’d be able to get a degree in Literature.

It’s nice being in an all-women’s house. It’s all so nice and orderly and refined. Nobody’s in the dining room drinking themselves into a tipsy and catcalling at nine o clock at night, and you certainly won’t find the stench of cigarette smoke clinging to the wallpaper. Sure, the rules can be a little strict, but it’s a small price to pay for peace. I wonder what it’s like when you take men and put them in one house together. Oh wait, they call that the army.

You’ve had so many girlfriends that I think you’d fit in well there.

Sincerely,

Alice

PS: At this point, I’m firmly convinced that you don’t know a single lick of English, and require a translator to even reply to my letters.”

***

_1938, a man stands in front of a crowd at 10 Downing Street, and he’s ending off his speech. “My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.” Alice steps away from the crowd and goes home._

_She does not sleep._

“30th September 1938

Dear Francis,

I am positively irate. I’m sure you’ll have heard of the news by the time this letter reaches you. Today I stood amongst my fellow countrymen and watched a man, a man who was supposed to do right by our country and make decisions that would help us all. But he has not done right, in my opinion. According to some people my opinion doesn’t actually amount to much, but you’ve been reading my opinions for the last eight years, so I don’t think that you’ll mind this one.

Peace is what everyone wants, especially when the last generation lived the Great War. They want peace so desperately that it seems like they’ve gone and clung to these fantasies so tightly that they can’t see the truth. This isn’t peace. Not even close. You can’t call it peace when Germany has troops in Austria and none of our countries are going to actually do anything about it. What they’ve done, the Munich Agreement, sounds like a plaster on a gunshot wound to me. They’re not fixing anything, they’re just covering it up so that they don’t have to deal with it. This is going to come back to bite us all in our arses, you just watch.

I feel restless too, like I shouldn’t be sitting around in the phone agency all day just waiting for something to happen and take away my normal schedule. I think you mentioned something like this in your last letter as well, and that you’re actually thinking of quitting your education to enlist since you’ve been eligible since the previous year. What I have to say is to don’t be daft. I know you’re still torn up over what happened to Antonio but it’s no reason to go rushing out there so that you can be first in line to die when the fighting starts. Besides, we don’t even know for certain when war will start. I don’t know- I just don’t want to think of anyone I know out there holding a gun. Especially you, you know that right? You’re this caring and loving guy (infuriatingly so at times, might I add), and it just doesn’t seem right to have you out there shooting down the Germans.

Maybe you don’t have to be the one holding the gun. Penning this down reminded me of something that I read about when I was a kid. We were in school when some nurses came down to give us a talk about a charity. They called it the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. They’re a voluntary charity that did a lot of work in the previous war. I could do it, if I wanted to. Volunteer, I mean. I’m not a man that can go out there and man the cannons, but I can very well help those that can. It’s better than sitting down and staring at the switchboard all day.

It’s a tad bit frightening, isn’t it? How fast all these things are happening? One moment I’m trying to get my father off my back about not having a boyfriend, and next I’m thinking of a war.

Sincerely,

Alice

PS: Stay in school frog, not all of us are lucky enough to get into a university.”

***

_It is 1939, and Alice has just sent off another letter. She has lost count of how many she’s written by this time. Once that is done, she heads home. There is no stopping at the grocer’s to see if there is fresh bread, or at her friend’s shop to chat. No, Alice has somewhere to be._

“2nd September 1939

Dear Francis,

This is not an appropriate time to be saying something like this, but I have to get it off my chest: I told you so. I felt like the two of us knew that the war would one day come. In a way, I feel glad that we’re prepared for this, instead of being caught out of the blue like some hopeless optimists were. Looks like our time’s up.

Now that war’s been declared, I can’t stop you from enlisting, and you can’t dissuade me from volunteering full time at the FANY. My parents won’t be happy as you can imagine, but at this point I can’t bring myself to actually listen to them. I know that they just want me safe, and it might be terrible of me to say this, but I don’t want to care. In a war, the bombs won’t discriminate between the good and the bad, nor the willing and the unwilling, so why not do something about it instead of hiding? I’ll do my bloody best and anyone that tries to stop me can go and climb a tree.

I just have one problem. The minimum age for volunteers is 23 years, so I’m short by 2 years. So much for all that big talk right? Maybe I can falsify my papers. It’s not a good thing to do, but don’t boys do that all the time to join the army? Why would this be any different? It’d be sad if after all my talk about helping out, I had to wait twenty four more months. I know a bit of first aid from being in Girl Guides back in school, so that’ll give me a bit of an advantage over the others. I just don’t know how I’ll react in real life if anything happens. There’s never been a situation where I actually had to use all the things I learnt, and I’m frightened that at a crucial point in time when I could help, I’d just freeze up like a statue. I can almost hear your voice now, telling me that I’ll be fine but we both know that that’s never certain.

How are you going to feel when you step out onto the battlefield? When you pull the trigger, knowing that the person on the other end is going to die? Are you sure that you’re going to be fine with this? If it’s still because of Antonio, give it up. You’re going to need more motivation than that if you plan to last the whole damn war. Don’t you die on me out there, you hear me? If you do I swear that I’ll travel all the way to France to dance on your bloody grave.

Sincerely,

Alice

PS: I mean it. I mean every single word. If you get yourself killed I’ll track your spirit down and stuff it back into your decaying body.”

***

_In the middle of a rainy night, 1940, a single window of a boarding house flares to life with light. Inside the room, Alice pens a letter, but her movements are quick and jerky and she can’t seem to stop her hand from shaking._

“29th March 1940

Dear Francis,

I don’t know how exactly to break the news to you. I mean, I guess you’ve probably seen it coming from the contents of my latest letters, and especially with what’s been going on during the war. I know that I have a choice not to do this, but you know that it’s not like me to sit idly by. If I can help Britain in any way I can, I will.

I’ve been with the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry for about six months, so they’ll be sending me out to the battlefields as a nurse primarily, but also as anything else the people there might need. I’ll be under the Nursing Corps stationed with the troops in France. I’ll be honest with you, when I heard the news I had the crazy notion that I’d be able to meet you face to face, but what are the chances of that? It is kind of sad. I’ve heard of penpals meeting after so many years of writing to one another, and they do it in some café on a nice warm afternoon. If we ever meet- well, considering what I’m doing, I hope we won’t.

I’ve gone off on a tangent. I wrote this letter to tell you that from now on, I probably won’t be able to write very frequently. I mean, it’s the same on your end, isn’t it? Now that you’re off fighting a war? It’s all happening so fast. One moment we were children bickering over which language to write in and now we’re both going off to our own battlefields. It’s terrifying when you look past all the talk of glory and patriotism. I’m scared that my help won’t be enough, but even more so I’m frightened of seeing first-hand what humans can do to each other. It’s not the bullets and shells that do the damage, you realise, but the hands that fired the weapon.

Enough of that kind of talk. Life’s depressing enough as it is without me dragging it down like this. For now, just stay safe and stay alive, okay?

Sincerely,

Alice”

_Once she is done she folds it up and seals the envelope, reaching over to the pile of stamps that she keeps in an old paperclip box, but it slowly lowers. Resigned, Alice opens the desk drawer and tucks the letter inside, on top of the two letters that’s been returned to the sender undelivered._

***

_The air is thick with smoke and fear. Both rainwater and blood muddies the ground of the battlefield, gathering in puddles within the pockmarks created by the explosion of shells. All around, men are fighting and dying. Some are lucky to escape the pain instantly, and some not so._

_It is with the latter that Alice deals. It is true that she does not hold a rifle, nor does she man the artillery, but she’s fighting her own battles within the infirmary. It has only been two days since the German troops approached their line, but her hands have gotten all too used to dealing with the injured that come her way. Optimism seems like it would help, but it’s hard to smile and carry on when the soldier’s whose leg she’s amputating is screaming to God to take him away now. She’s always been religious, but when her hands are covered in the blood of a dead man, it’s easy to forget that Heaven exists. To her, and all those of the British Expeditionary Force, there’s only Hell and it’s on Earth._

_It’s also easy to lose track of time, and to counter that Alice dedicates 10 precious minutes every night to write in her journal after her rounds, talking about her day and her thoughts. Once, another nurse found it lying on her pallet and asked who Francis was. She called him a friend but the nurse wasn’t very convinced._

_“Just mail those letters if you miss him that badly,” The nurse said, to which Alice could only shake her head._

_“If I could, I’d have sent them a long time ago.” Was all she replied with._

***

“15th May 1940”

_The date sits at the top of the page, but before Alice can continue her attention is called away to the messengers rushing through camp. They are yelling orders- something about evacuation and a German spearhead, but she doesn’t focus on that. Instead she focusses on packing up the medical supplies ASAP and readying the injured for transportation._

_It’s not the first time that they’ve moved, but this time she can’t help but notice that they are pulling closer to Dunkirk, which is a coastal area. Finally the pieces come together in an exhilarating realisation that her mind instantly rejects. They are to be evacuated, but so soon? It is too soon, Alice guesses, and she can’t help but feel that not all has gone according to plan._

_They drive out in trucks, and Alice is assigned to a medical truck that holds two nurses, too little supplies and a surplus of wounded. The journey is too long, and it is made longer when they have to stop three times to bury the bodies of those who died along the way._

_They reach Dunkirk on the 19th of May._

_***_

_The 20th of May is not a day that will be fondly remembered by many an Allied solider, and rightly so. On that day, the Germans finally reach the coast, and the Allied troops are practically surrounded and cut off from the rest of their forces. Alice is busy all day long, so much so that she loses track of time and forgets to eat her rations at midday. Her number of patients have drastically increased now that some of the French First Army, the BEF and Belgian Army have pooled their resources to survive being cut off from the main force._

_It is now near midnight, but she’s still on her feet making sure that none of the men die under her watch. Passing a mattress, she pauses to check the wound of a French man and doesn’t cringe when it shows the first signs of infection. “Sir, I’m going to have to clean this again and change your bandages.” She says and returns with some swabs, alcohol and a fresh roll of bandage._

_“I don’t suppose I could have a mouthful of that first?” The man groans in pain, and Alice shakes her head. This is not the first time that she’s gotten a request like that, and she goes through the motions of explaining that medical alcohol is NOT the same as liquor, and that ingesting some of it would be detrimental towards the body. He whistles lowly when she’s done, “You’re smart.”_

_“I make it a point to be,” Alice replies with a smile before continuing on her rounds._

_She checks on him again in the afternoon. He’s running a high fever but that’s to be expected. Before she leaves, he grabs her hand and mumbles in drowsy French, “A beautiful mind must be taken care of.” Alice writes it off as the ramblings of a deliriously ill man and continues on her way._

_The next day, he’s improved somewhat, enough to apologise sheepishly in English for his actions the day before. “I was sick, but I was just trying to tell you that you should take care of yourself too.”_

_To which Alice replies with, “If I can’t handle myself how am I going to handle all of you men?” because she can’t think of anything else to respond with. It’s been a long time since someone’s cared for her like that, and the suddenness of it startles her a tad bit. The soldier laughs, and suddenly she feels like laughing too._

_That night it rains long and hard, and the drum rolls of thunder and cracks of lightning reminds her of the distant sounds of battle. It isn’t surprising when she hears the cries and distressed calls from the infirmary, because nightmares are common here. With only a think shawl over her clothes, Alice carries a lamp and drifts between the cots, calming the men with a touch to the forehead and a few soothing words. Out of habit, she pauses at his cot even though it’s silent._

_Alice is glad that she did, because in the dim light of the lamp, she can see the glimmer of tears on his cheeks. His hands are clutching the sheets tightly and he has bitten his lip hard enough to draw blood. “Wake up,” She calls softly, placing the lamp on the ground so that she can loosen his fists. “It’s just a nightmare.” At her touch, his eyes fly wide open and he sucks in a sharp breath. But once his eyes adjusts to the light, the man relaxes and gives her a weak smile. “It’s okay, everyone here has bad dreams once in a while.” His next words break her heart:_

_“I’d be happier if they were just all bad dreams.”_

_Alice doesn’t know how to reply to that, but thankfully he continues. “I’ve seen so many people die on the field, war’s terrible like that. Everything becomes so clear in the middle of gunfire, that I’m not some hero who’s going to avenge the fallen and save France. I’m just one of the many pawns that are dropping like flies, and it’s a miracle that I’m not dead yet.”_

_“That’s awfully pessimistic of you,” Alice points out, “It might be the truth, but you could be one of those people that’ll live to see the end of the war.”_

_“What are the chances of that? I wish I just tied up some loose ends before coming here. I’m okay with dying, but it hurts me to think of the ones I’m leaving behind.”_

_“We all have people that we’ve left behind,” She says, thinking back to the unsent letters in her drawer. “Maybe one day, in a time when things are better, we can go back and find them.”_

_The man smiles, “You sound so hopeful. I think that’s beautiful. Do you really believe that?”_

_Alice nods._

_“As a soldier, I don’t think I can have as much hope as you.” He sighs and pauses for a few moments. Alice wonders if she’s somehow upset the man, but her fears are unfounded. “This is a really clichéd thing to do, but can you help me with a favour?” Without waiting for his reply, the man reaches into his pocket to pull out an envelope that’s practically bulging with letters. “If I don’t make it, send this to the address on it.”_

_“Just make sure that you get to deliver it yourself,” The woman says abruptly, but her words aren’t harsh. “I’m not your postman.” She takes the letters anyway._

_***_

_He doesn’t get to send the letters himself. On the 1st of June, 1940, the German planes fly over the town, and bombs drop on the city. Fires devour the buildings hungrily, and the troops are struggling to operate under the added onslaught of suffering civilians. The infirmary is not hit, but the injured have to move onto the boats waiting at the shore for evacuation. She manages to help the man to where most of the French troops are, but when she tries to stay with him the person in charge tells her to leave. “We’ll take care of our own,” he says, “you should too.” Amid the rush, Alice tries to pass the letters back to him, but he refuses to take them. He says something about having someone to read them but she can’t hear him clearly over the noise and she can see that her supervisor is beckoning for her._

_“Take care,” She tells him quickly._

_“You too, and thank you.”_

_She watches him as he boards one of the French destroyers and heads off to find her own. In the end, she’s assigned to a small boat- a civilian owned one, that’s waiting for its turn to leave the port._

_They finally pull away from the dock, and Alice can’t help but feel relieved. Britain. Home. Safety. She can’t wait to have those again. She’s only been out in the field for a couple of months, but it’s a lot to bear for one who’s lived in London all her life. Perhaps after this things might settle down, and maybe the war would be over soon. She could get back to her life, write her letters again._

_The shrill sound of yet another air raid signal shatters her daydreams. Overhead she can see dark shapes approaching rapidly like crows flocking towards their food, and there is nothing she can do as their great underbellies open and drop the small bombs that flatten whichever part of the town that they land on. Smoke and dust rises alongside the wails of the people. Alice shuts her eyes and look away, praying that they can get away fast enough. ‘Maybe they’ll only target the town, and that our boat isn’t big enough to attract attention.’ She’s half right._

_The planes do not stop at the shore, they do not turn back for the way that they came. Instead, they zero in on the ships and boats that dot the straits with frightening intensity. Two of them converge on one of the larger ships, the Foudroyant, and in a second there are great dark clouds rising from large holes in the ship’s deck. Waves from the impact rock their little boat and Alice finds herself clinging to the railing beside her head to stop herself from being tossed overboard. Another small boat nearer to the impact is not so lucky- the water flips it over like a plastic bath toy. It’s over almost too quickly. There is a small explosion- the gas pipes must have been damaged, and the broken skeleton slowly sinks beneath the oil slicked waves._

_Alice’s boat pulls away, almost unnoticed._

_The sight of bodies floating in glossy black waters isn’t one that’s easily forgotten. It burns itself into the back of her eyelids, and she knows that it’s a memory that will haunt her for a very long time. But for now, the horror is lost beneath the thick relief that she feels at being spared, and in an impulse she hugs the woman next to her tightly._

_In fact, she’s so relieved that they are halfway across the straits of Dover before she realises that he was on the Foudroyant._

_***_

_3rd of June, 1940. A packet of letters, dirtied and crumpled, is added to a stack of pristine envelopes inside a drawer. They are all unread._

_***_

“5th June 1940

Dear Francis,

I’m back in London. I’m safe, I’m alive. Are you alive? Where are you? I’ve got so many things that I want to say, but I can’t tell them to the women in the boarding house or my family. I don’t want them to know how bad it really is. To them, I’m okay.

Sometimes I wonder if you get nightmares. It’s okay if you do. Did you know that back in France, whenever there was a thunderstorm, many soldiers in the infirmary would get nightmares? I think it’s because the lightning sounds like guns. Well that’s what I thought back then at least. Now I know that the thunder sounds like bombs. Whenever it rains at night, I catch myself walking down the hallway looking for someone with a nightmare to comfort, but then I remember that I’m alone.

It’s funny how you’re somehow never alone out there. I never realised how isolated my life could be before the war until I was surrounded by people all day. Strangely, I didn’t mind the change. Now the flat is too quiet. If I listen to the silence, I can hear the soft sound of soldiers dying on the hospital beds. The ones I couldn’t catch, the ones I couldn’t save. I don’t want to hear that.

Alice”

***

_15th of June, 1940. The women of the boarding house are gathered together for breakfast as usual, half listening to the news on the radio and talking amongst themselves. Some wonder out loud what it’s like to be on the front, and some heads turn towards the woman sitting at the end of the table. Half her food is still untouched. “Aren’t you going to finish that?” They ask out of concern, but Alice merely smiles and doesn’t reply._

“15th June 1940

Dear Francis,

I’ve never realised how much food they give at the boarding house. Or maybe it’s because my appetites gotten smaller over the months I was away? Now I can’t finish my food and I feel terrible. It’s a good thing the woman who sits next to me is always open for seconds, which explains why she’s a little bit on the plump side. If not, I’d have to throw it away and that’s such a waste. They don’t let us give our leftovers to the children on the streets because they think that that’ll encourage them to steal our food. What does it matter? I have more than enough to share.

Today I tried sending the letters again, but the moment I opened the drawer, I just started remembering how that man looked like when he boarded that boat. Do you know how he looked like? He looked more than overjoyed. I remember that he mentioned about having left someone behind, and that’s probably whom those letters are addressed to. Maybe if his ship hadn’t”

_She can’t do it. The letter remains unfinished._

***

“3rd August 1940

Dear Francis,

I’m sorry I didn’t complete that last letter, it was very rude of me. I suppose mentioning that incident is kind of a hard topic for me. He was just the first guy that I knew personally out there, I didn’t let myself get any closer to the soldiers there because you’d never know when they’d go. He was the exception. I don’t know why, maybe it was his eyes? They were the clearest shade of blue that you’d only see about once a year here in dreary Britain. Maybe that’s why I liked looking at them so often.

Sincerely,

Alice”

***

“7th August 1940

Dear Francis,

Sometimes I wonder what you would say if you actually read these letters. Would you tell me to stop being a bloody coward and just mail them to the poor girl who’s been waiting for him back home? Probably not, I can’t imagine you saying that, but that’s how I feel. I don’t know how to explain why, it’s just that every time I open the drawer, my hands seem to clench and I can’t even touch them. It’s been getting better as time passes, so maybe I have to work myself through this.

I miss you a lot, and if you could read this letter you’d probably would never stop rubbing it in my face. But I know that if I sent this one it’d just be returned to me anyway, so why should I set myself up for that disappointment? Writing to you is just so easy, because there’s just something about the way that you actually listen that makes me feel better.

Maybe that’s why I haven’t stopped writing yet.

Sincerely,

Alice”

***

“12th August 1940

Dear Francis,

I almost worked up the courage to send the letters today, but then I saw the address.

Why didn’t you tell me?”

***

“23rd August 1940

Dear Francis,

I’m sorry, it’s not your fault you didn’t know. Maybe it’s mine for not realising. Or maybe we’re both not at fault. Who could have known? What were the chances? It just… shook me up pretty badly when I found out. We had so much time back then, but we both let it slip away.

If only we’d known.

After I found out, I couldn’t write for days. What was the point when I knew for certain that the person I was writing to would never ever read my letters? I read yours though. I sat down and made myself go through every single one of them, even though it really hurt because the only thing that went through my mind was that the person who wrote those letters ~~is now d~~  wouldn’t be able to write any more.

Out there, we didn’t know each other very well, but you are were polite, funny and talking to you could make me forget that there was a war going on, even if just for a few minutes. I can understand why the girl had that crush on you back when we were fourteen.

My mother said that writing this letter might make me feel better, and I guess she’s right. Now I can tell you that when I mourn, I won’t just be mourning for the man on the sunken ship, but also for the friend that I’ve had over the years. Maybe if we’d known each other in a different time where everything was better, where there were no wars to be fought, we could’ve been more than friends. I just feel so cheated, do you understand? It’s like the thing about how you never truly know what you have until you’ve lost it.

And I’ve lost you.

Alice”

***

24th of August, 1940. That night, Alice wakes to the sound of thunder. She’s screaming, but she isn’t the only one. The ground is shaking and the glass on her window has broken. Acrid smoke pours in from the outside where bright tongues of flames lap hungrily at the mountains of rubble. She can hear the air raid siren screaming in the background, and she knows that she should go to the air raid shelter, but Alice can’t bring herself to move.

The German planes draw nearer. She holds her last letter to her chest and goes back to sleep.

-End-

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: First of all, thank you for taking the time to read my piece for the event! I spent a lot more time on it, and the research, than I’d care to admit, but overall I think I’m happy with it. 
> 
> That aside, I’d like to note that the charity which Alice joined is in fact real. The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry was an all female charity which was active in both World Wars, with the women in it pulling off amazing things. They weren’t just nurses, as Alice was, but they could also double as engineers, drivers and some were even involved in covert operations. I wrote them into this story with no intentions whatsoever of trivializing the efforts put forth by them during the war, so if it had come across as such I apologise. 
> 
> Historical References
> 
> Manstein Plan (Implied)
> 
> Operation Dynamo/Dunkirk Evacuation: 27th May – 4th June 1940
> 
> 24th August 1940: German planes mistakenly bomb civilian houses in London, originally aiming for RAF airfields. Britain bombs Berlin in retaliation, which some say was a catalyst for the Blitzkrieg.
> 
> (And if you didn't get it, yes Alice died haha)


End file.
